I purchased an Olympus C-5050z about 2 weeks ago. This is a 5mp didigtal camera. My aquarium shots have not been impressive due to my harsh lighting (10k 65W CF right on top of the glass). I plan to move the light higher. This camera has every bell and whistle that you could imagine. I bought the camera for underwater photography.

My Kodak DX4330 takes excellent quality pictures. The clarity and color rendition are as good as I've seen. My problem is focusing. I need to read up on that TTL focus scheme.

I am finding out that the lens is where the quality is at. My aunt has a Sony with a Carl Zeiss lens that takes some of the most AMAZING macro shots imagineable. We're talking zooming in on your fingerprint! Sure, it's $1000 but that is going to be my next eventual step.

I took delivery of a Olympus C4000z yesterday I've started playing with it and so far I am amazed at the quality of the pics I'm getting.
previously I was borrowing a friends c3030 so most of the settings are in the same order which has helped.

That's a neat shot, Kyle. It's hard to catch the constantly-moving tetras. I've gotten a lot better at those kinds of close ups, but now I'm having a hard time taking whole-tank pics again! I can't get the light quite right.

The best success I have had with focusing is 1) to take a dozen pictures (a few of which, will be perfectly in focus) or 2) for a more sure method, mine has this feature where it will outline (with a small red box) in the viewfinder what it is focusing on. If you see it focusing on something in the foreground or back ground, hit the focus/shutter button again and it will try to find something else to focus on. Of course, for fast-moving fish, they will by now have moved on to the something more interesting than posing for you, but it works great for inanimate or slow-moving objects.

For macro shots, you need to switch into manual mode.
Set the shutter for 1/150 or so and the aperture to F 4.0 atleast.
That will 'freeze' the fish and increase the depth of field so that
if the fish is at an angle, the whole thing will still be in focus.
Depending on your light, you may need an external flash.
If you don't have an external flash, and your pictures are coming
out too dark with these settings, try F 3.0 and shutter 1/80 though
that may not work AS well as the other shots.

Compare these pics...
Top one, with autofocus, point&shoot setting, no flash
Bottom one with autofocus, manual settings, F Stop 4.0, 1/150, external flash
Notice that in the bottom picture everything is in focus whereas in
the top one, the eggs/leaf closer to the camera is blurry.

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